The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-11-19

that the master who killed his slave
should be arraigned and punished as a
murderer. He also made the manumi-
tion of the slave a religious act, to be
performed in the church, with the at
testatiOn of the Bishop. Under Con-
stantine freedmen for the first time at
tanned the full rights Of citizenship.
They had before been obliged to per-
form certain prescribed services for
their masters, and if they became i'm
poverished to support them and if the
freedman died intestate, his entire
property became that of his former
master. But Constantine completed
their enfranchisement. Justinian made
numerous provisions in favor of eman-
cipatiOn. From the first, slaves were
admitted to holy orders without regard
to their servile condition. The Christ
ian empeIors, from Constantine onward,
encouraged and facilitated the emanci-
patton of slaves in orders, until bishop
or priest was pronounced free by the
fact of his ordination.
The influence of Christianity had a
very powerful influence in cleansing
and modifying the marriage laws of
the empire. The legal liberty of divorce
on the part of the husband, even in the
puTest days Of the republic, was large,
though not often exercised. AS Rene
grew rich and luxurious, divorces be-
came frequent, and were made on the
most frivolous grounds. In Cicero's
time, divorce had become so common
among men Of good standing in society
that Cicero's own case was only unusual
in the fact that he gave reasons for this
action. This evil received its first
check in the legislation of a Christian
Emperor. Constantine issued an edict
by which wife could obtain divorce
from her husband, only if he were
homicide, magician, or violatOr Of
tombs, whether for plunder or with sac
rilegious intent; and the wife could be
divorced only if she were an adulteress,
a dabler in the black art, or procuress.
Edicts still less favorable to divorce
were issued by Honorius, and other later
emperors and Justinian's code left
the law Of divorce somewhat less rigid
than we have it in the New Testament:
still in a much more healthy condition
than prevails at this time in our coun-
try. Christian influence modified the
Roman law of parental authority, or
the fathers power over the child. By
the old Roman law. this power was uR-
limited, extending even to the child's
life. The father, so long as he lived,
had sovereign power over the child's
destiny, services, earnings and dCmes-
tic relations. The only exception was
that Of the pecalium cGStreneSe, that is
the wages of military service, which
under Augustus, and not earlier, was
made the sons own property. While
adult children might still continue sub
ject to fathers tyranny till they them
selves were old men, the practice of in
fanticide continued without legal check;
and at the beginning Of the fourth CEN
tury, Lactantius speaks of it as COM
mon practice, to which was attached
neither penalty, reprOach nor shame.
1t was not before the middle of the
third century, or near that time, that
the fathers right to kill his adult chill
dren was legally repealed. Until near
the close of the third century, father
might sell his children at any age into
slavery. Diocletian limited this right
to the sale of newborn children by
parents in extreme poverty. (Har-
ward Lectures by DR.. Peabody
In this whole field of legislation, Con-
stantine was vigorous refoImer. He
issued the first edict that made infan-
ticide crime; and he placed it on the
same legal basis as any other fo1m of
murder. He also enacted the first
pOOr-law on record except those we find
in the Hebrew Scriptures. Constan-
tine made children the sole heirs of
their mothers property.
Gratian made the children of de-
ceased wife the immediate heirs of their
maternal grandparents. Justinian Sc
cured to children the entire control of
whatever property or revenue indie
pendently Of their fathers, limiting the
fathers control to such property as he
might give the child. We thus see to
what extent Christian teaching modi-
fed Roman law, and have in this fact
a revelation of its saving influence on
human society.
THE ability of people, and organiza-
tiOns, and enterprises to live together
in this world, was never so great as it